Companies such as Apple would love for you to ditch your credit cards completely and instead use Apple Pay through an iPhone. One argument in favor of this is cards are less secure by design, but that's set to change if a new biometric card proves popular.
Mastercard today unveiled a new payment card with an embedded fingerprint sensor and therefore a whole new layer of security.
By placing the sensor directly on the card, it ensures the person who owns the card must be present with their finger on the card to complete a transaction. That is, of course, assuming the store you're in supports the feature through its card terminals. Mastercard says no new hardware is required for authentication to work, however.
If you're thinking this all sounds very familiar, it may be because Mastercard first talked about a card with a fingerprint sensor back in 2014.
The card goes hi-tech with #biometrics https://t.co/5n6ZBUzLN9 pic.twitter.com/sobcSAoRjB
— Mastercard News (@MastercardNews) April 20, 2017
In order to function, the card needs to know what the owner's fingerprint is. This is achieved by a bank recording your fingerprint, turning it into an encrypted digital template, and storing it on the card before handing it over to the new owner.
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Trials of the biometric card are already underway in South Africa through the supermarket retailer Pick n Pay and Barclays Africa subsidiary Asba Bank. The trials will be expanded over the next few months to include locations across Europe and Asia Pacific, and then Mastercard expects a "full roll out" of the system before the end of 2017.
In order for security to work, it really needs to be transparent for the user trying to protect themselves. I think Mastercard managed to achieve that with this new card. The card holder doesn't need to do anything different beyond being a little more accurate with finger placement when paying. The rest is automatic. And with fingerprint authentication enabled, there's very little point in stealing the card, or in fact the user panicking if it is stolen.